


Filling in the blanks

by Yminga



Category: Skins (UK)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-05
Updated: 2019-08-05
Packaged: 2020-07-31 12:09:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20114878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yminga/pseuds/Yminga
Summary: The story of a panic attack and a chance encounter, or how Tony and Maxxie got closer after Tony's accident.





	Filling in the blanks

**Author's Note:**

> Hey everyone! Not my usual fandom but I was curious about how Tony and Maxxie got closer before S02E01 and...well, this happened.

Tony’s hands shook as he tried and failed to close the second-to-last button on his shirt for the sixth time this morning. It was so frustrating – but then, lately everything was frustrating.

The button refused for the seventh time to find its assigned slot and Tony snarled, only keeping himself from tearing his shirt off because it had taken him twenty minutes to get this far. He had woken up feeling better this morning, more like himself – whoever that was – and he had wanted to celebrate by wearing something else than the sweatshirts which had become his trademark since the accident. Choosing a shirt among the ones stuck in the back of his closet and eventually settling on the least wrinkled had been a strangely pleasant exercise, and he had even managed to close his slacks on his second try – but everything had gone downhill from there.

He ended up going downstairs with two of his shirt’s buttons still undone and a thunderous expression on his face, silently daring anyone to acknowledge him.

“Classy. Got a hot date?” It was Effy, of course, addressing him from the kitchen’s doorframe, a hand poised on her hip. She was watching him carefully, almost devoutly, like she always did lately, and Tony couldn’t even feel properly annoyed at her because about three months ago she had held his bloodied head in her lap, and even with only half of his brain left he had some idea of how that must have felt.

“Jealous?” He answered instead, but with no conviction – the energy his frustration had lent him had already fled, and tiredness, his constant companion as of late, was back. He had woken up twenty-seven minutes ago, and he wanted nothing more than to go back to bed. Pathetic.

Acting on a whim, he started in direction of the front door instead of going towards the couch where he spent most of his waking hours. Effy watched him all the while, her eyes careful, but she didn’t say anything – Tony had known she wouldn’t. He kept going, still half-expecting his parents to suddenly appear and stop him, until finally he was outside, having left the house for the first time in two months.

***

Truth be told, Tony had no idea where he was going; he decided to walk randomly, leaving all the work to his feet and concentrating instead on the way the sun and wind felt against his skin. The sensations were so entrancing that he didn’t quite realize he had left his peaceful neighbourhood behind until the first car rushed past him, driving very close to the pavement. The noise stopped Tony in his tracks, even as his heart skipped a beat.

He should go back from where he came, just turn back, that’s easy, he instantly thought, but his feet didn’t feel like obeying. A second car went past him, then a third, dangerously fast, and still he didn’t move. He stared at a small crack on the low stone wall to his right instead, trying to rearrange his thoughts. It wasn’t even an avenue, he told himself again and again, just a large street; plus it was day, so drivers could see him easily, and anyway he was _on the pavement_, for fuck’s sake – and so on and so forth, until he felt a bit more composed and his heart rate had more or less gone back to normal. Just as it felt like he was finally calm enough to go on his way, a large car arrived on the crossroad and cut off another vehicle, whose pissed owner let out a loud blare in protest. Tony’s breath got stuck in his throat at the sound and he whimpered aloud, his mind painted gray with panic. It was starting to feel like he’d actually faint here, just from hearing a fucking car horn, when a worried voice called out to him.

“Tone?”

Tony still couldn’t move, but he didn’t need to: the voice’s owner hurriedly got closer, until concerned blue eyes managed to peer at him from behind a fringe of darkish blond hair. Tony couldn’t remember the guy’s name, even as he recognized him from the hospital: he had visited twice, although it hadn’t felt like they were truly close. Contrarily to most visitors, he hadn’t sat next to Tony in order to hold his hand, but had just stood at the end of his bed and watched him, smiling pleasantly enough but apparently not in any hurry to actually touch his hospitalized friend.

Well, too fucking bad for him, because right now Tony really needed something to hold on to; he ended up stepping forward to abruptly hug the other guy, partly to avoid falling down, but mostly so he could bury his head in the blonde’s shoulder and ignore the world around him for a moment. The body he was holding against his tensed a bit, and Tony wondered absently if he was going to get punched in the jaw, but no- he was getting embraced in return, surprisingly strong arms closing up around him and hiding him away.

How long they stayed like this, silently hugging in the street, Tony couldn’t have said; he only knew it was long enough for embarrassment to replace panic, until he eventually stepped away from his companion.

“Hey Tony.” The blonde guy – Max, that was it – said softly.

“Hey Max.”

“Maxxie.” He corrected with a smile.

You should be glad I even remembered your name, Tony thought, but considering he had just used the guy as an anchor and a sound-blocking screen, he didn’t quite dare express his opinion.

“Are you going somewhere in particular or…?” Maxxie asked him in a detached tone, like it was perfectly normal to find your friend having a mental breakdown in the middle of the street.

“No, just…getting some fresh air.”

Once again, Maxxie showed admirable discretion, not asking any of the questions he must have had about Tony wandering on his own at this point of his (non)recovery. Tony could have kissed him.

“Well I’m going to dance practice. Want to join me? It’s just around the block.”

Dance practise. Tony considered the boy before him, deciding it fitted – and not just because it explained why his arms were so strong. It just seemed to fit.

“You do that a lot.” Tony said decisively. “Dancing.”

Maxxie shot him a curious smile.

“Yeah, I really do. Is that a deduction, or do you remember something?”

Tony wasn’t sure, so he just shrugged, and was rewarded by a small laugh from the other boy.

“You’ve changed, Tone.”

Tony tensed a little; he had heard this sentence a hundred times in the past months, or so it felt like. Yet Maxxie’s voice wasn’t full of regret and anger – or worse, pity – and he was still smiling a little, so Tony nodded in response.

“Yeah, okay, I’ll come. How long is it going to take?” 

Maxxie hesitated, checking him over in a way that was probably meant to be discreet.

“An hour or so. It’s the holidays, so I can afford to relax. I think I’m pretty much the only member of my class who still hasn’t missed a session… And then we can go back to your house together – I haven’t seen your sis’ in a while, it’d be nice to say hello.”

Tony had no doubt the lesson was meant to last longer than an hour, and he was pretty sure Effy and Maxxie hadn’t exchanged a single word when they’d met in the hospital, but considering Maxxie’s version of the facts allowed him to be home in an hour and a half while keeping his dignity, he wasn’t going to complain.

***

Tony guessed, from what he’d been told and what little he could remember, that he must have been a rather touchy-feely guy before the accident. He must have used to enjoy ruffling his friends’ hair, shaking his teachers’ hand, kissing his mother’s cheek, getting his girlfriend off (or girlfriends, as the case may be).

Truthfully, it all seemed pretty inconceivable today, when physical contact rarely meant anything pleasant, but rather rhymed with more-or-less invasive medical procedures, with his mother’s awkward hand on his shoulder as she gazed sadly down at him, with his father’s arms restraining him when he had a fit out of frustration, with all the little things that had to be done for and to him everyday, reminding him of how much he had lost.

Effy, who often took his hand or stroked through his now-short hair in long, sweeping caresses, who read to him when he woke from a nightmare, was probably the only person whose touch he didn’t associate with humiliation or regret – looking back on how she had flat-out refused to help with any of the daily tasks his care entailed, offering to be there for him through the night instead when their mother had complained, he wouldn’t have been surprised to learn she’d done it on purpose.

Of course, none of this explained why Maxxie and he were currently walking hand in hand towards his home.

It had seemed extremely logical on their way to Maxxie’s dancing lesson; Tony was still pretty shaken, Maxxie had to show him the way, and anyway the trip hadn’t lasted more than five minutes – it was indeed only a block away. Maxxie had placed himself between the road and him and had matter-of-factly taken his hand; Tony had gratefully accepted, clutching the hand in his own a bit too tightly, and that had been it.

But then Maxxie had taken his hand again as they left, even though Tony felt much calmer after an hour or so of watching his friend dance (and rather well at that, he had to admit). Tony hadn’t protested; perhaps, he mused, because he had already begun to associate the other guy’s touch with reassurance. He should have been feeling resentful, patronized, but Maxxie was simply too laid-back – it was impossible to feel annoyed at the blond when he took everything so calmly.

It probably helped that Maxxie was much too short to look down on anyone.

Tony wondered, absently, what the few people they’d met going back to his house saw in their joined hands. Did they think them boyfriends? It was the most logical inference, considering the scars of his accident were in his head and not on his face. He wondered whether Maxxie would mind. Then he wondered if Maxxie perhaps had a partner who would mind, and this last thought brought along a sharp spike of an unidentified emotion – joy? pleasure?

Or perhaps something darker, something the guy with a beanie he hadn’t seen since the hospital – Sid – and the beautiful girl who had only visited once and cried the entire time – Effy had called her Michelle – had both hinted at. A sadistic enjoyment at others’ troubles, especially when he had been the one to cause them. A will to see people dance for him like puppets would, only to cut the cord when he had become the main thing holding them up.

He shied away from the unpleasant thought and concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other – his tiredness was catching up with him, weighting on his shoulders. Surely, he told himself, all of this was long since over: today, he had enough work trying to manipulate his own body.

***

Tony paid for his little escapade with a round of tearful yelling from his parents, renewed nightmares and thirty hours straight spent in his bed, too exhausted to do much more than turn on his side to stare at the wall when he got tired of looking at his bedroom’s ceiling.

He didn’t regret a thing.


End file.
